A gut punch investigative novel packed with corruption and dogged reporters
This book is like a bombardment of missives and missiles launched all at once from one relatively slim package. “Bad City” isn’t the longest investigative, true-crime novel I’ve ever read, but it sure does pack one heck of a punch for the words it contains.
But that’s what you get when you put a lifelong, seriously-dedicated investigative reporter who relishes the world of newspaper journalism (me too, for that matter) behind a keyboard and leave it to them to tell the story of how they came about catching and then publishing two of the biggest stories of their career (and the careers of several other people, too), both being intrinsically tied to the beleaguered University of Southern California (for the record, I’ve lived in California all my life and although I live in NorCal it’s kind of considered common knowledge around these parts that USC is corrupt. Sorry, but it’s true).
Journalists learn to pack as much of a message into as few words as they can. Column inches cost money, people! If you want the front page headline, you had better be sure your story is worth the extra inches those large, attention-attracting letters are going to cost the paper. This concise manner of writing is something I value greatly when I read investigative true-crime books like this. It reads like some of my favorite long-form investigative reports from Reveal News, but without the hyperlinks and infographics. It’s better for that, I think, because it allows someone like me (hello ADD) to stick solely to the words, to sink into the story and really inhale the inherent corruption that is Los Angeles (which is more Sin City than Las Vegas is, in my opinion) without any distractions. Not even a single picture graces the pages of this book and I am completely grateful.
Pringle may not be a creature born and bred in Los Angeles, but he understands the smog isn’t something that only hovers over the basin like a sickly miasma: Los Angeles is sickly, sallow city full of predators, prey, monsters, angels, the debased, and the innocent. Most of all, it’s full of the hilariously rich and the heartbreakingly poor. Los Angeles is a city full of symbiotic and parasitic relationships. It’s a beautiful city, full of beautiful people, but just like every Hollywood special effect, makeup design, or period costume, it’s all superficial. At its heart, Los Angeles is just like every other major metropolitan area in the world: an asphalt jungle full of people hungry for more of something: pick your poison. Pringle gets that, and that makes him an incredibly effective reporter. Well, that, and persistence: one of the most important weapons in a reporter’s arsenal. Pringle leaves no doubt in the writing of this book how doggedly persistent he and his fellow writers were while investigating and writing this story: persistent to the point of turning their entire paper upside down in pursuit of publishing their report without it being ripped apart by upper muckity-mucks who were obviously under the sway of conflict of interest from USC officials.
If I had a single complaint about this book it would be including, even if it was briefly, a small section on Operation Varsity Blues, the DOJ-FBI case that stretched across the country and implicated several private universities (including, most prominently, USC) and many rich (and sometimes famous) parents who used a “recruiter” middleman to bribe universities into accepting their children into their desired schools when their test scores weren’t up to par under the guise of them being athletes (even if they weren’t athletes at all). This book had more than enough scandal, sleaze, and salaciousness to cover between the two major cases it had already covered. Including Operation Varsity Blues not only seemed like overkill, but it also felt very tacked on. It felt like a puzzle piece that just doesn’t fit right. Like you think you have the right piece but it’s just a little too loose or a little too tight. It just should’ve been left out.
But that’s what you get when you put a lifelong, seriously-dedicated investigative reporter who relishes the world of newspaper journalism (me too, for that matter) behind a keyboard and leave it to them to tell the story of how they came about catching and then publishing two of the biggest stories of their career (and the careers of several other people, too), both being intrinsically tied to the beleaguered University of Southern California (for the record, I’ve lived in California all my life and although I live in NorCal it’s kind of considered common knowledge around these parts that USC is corrupt. Sorry, but it’s true).
Journalists learn to pack as much of a message into as few words as they can. Column inches cost money, people! If you want the front page headline, you had better be sure your story is worth the extra inches those large, attention-attracting letters are going to cost the paper. This concise manner of writing is something I value greatly when I read investigative true-crime books like this. It reads like some of my favorite long-form investigative reports from Reveal News, but without the hyperlinks and infographics. It’s better for that, I think, because it allows someone like me (hello ADD) to stick solely to the words, to sink into the story and really inhale the inherent corruption that is Los Angeles (which is more Sin City than Las Vegas is, in my opinion) without any distractions. Not even a single picture graces the pages of this book and I am completely grateful.
Pringle may not be a creature born and bred in Los Angeles, but he understands the smog isn’t something that only hovers over the basin like a sickly miasma: Los Angeles is sickly, sallow city full of predators, prey, monsters, angels, the debased, and the innocent. Most of all, it’s full of the hilariously rich and the heartbreakingly poor. Los Angeles is a city full of symbiotic and parasitic relationships. It’s a beautiful city, full of beautiful people, but just like every Hollywood special effect, makeup design, or period costume, it’s all superficial. At its heart, Los Angeles is just like every other major metropolitan area in the world: an asphalt jungle full of people hungry for more of something: pick your poison. Pringle gets that, and that makes him an incredibly effective reporter. Well, that, and persistence: one of the most important weapons in a reporter’s arsenal. Pringle leaves no doubt in the writing of this book how doggedly persistent he and his fellow writers were while investigating and writing this story: persistent to the point of turning their entire paper upside down in pursuit of publishing their report without it being ripped apart by upper muckity-mucks who were obviously under the sway of conflict of interest from USC officials.
If I had a single complaint about this book it would be including, even if it was briefly, a small section on Operation Varsity Blues, the DOJ-FBI case that stretched across the country and implicated several private universities (including, most prominently, USC) and many rich (and sometimes famous) parents who used a “recruiter” middleman to bribe universities into accepting their children into their desired schools when their test scores weren’t up to par under the guise of them being athletes (even if they weren’t athletes at all). This book had more than enough scandal, sleaze, and salaciousness to cover between the two major cases it had already covered. Including Operation Varsity Blues not only seemed like overkill, but it also felt very tacked on. It felt like a puzzle piece that just doesn’t fit right. Like you think you have the right piece but it’s just a little too loose or a little too tight. It just should’ve been left out.